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It was a regular day in Esthar City, the technological wonder of the world. The sun shone bright through the massive perimeter forcefield, shiny chrome vehicles zipped along lightways in the sky, and pedestrians lounged on their hovering platforms, coasting through networks of colorful glass tubes. Sleek robots made from all kinds of ceramics, alloys, and polymers performed their functions exactly to their programming: cleaning the windows of towering white skyscrapers, sweeping the crystalline roads and walkways, transporting loads to construction sites for even greater wonders to be built.
Everything in the city was alive with beautiful, highly advanced, and socially beneficial technology -- technology that Dr. Gesper resoundingly did not invent.
Gesper was a short, plump, wrinkled little man who spent most of his time grumbling in his first floor apartment, tucked beside a tall glass garbage chute in the back of a nondescript residential tower. The chute itself was a highly efficient structure, accepting trash from hundreds of stories high and bringing it all the way down to the waste management system below ground. It looked clean and had no smell, but the stigma of living next to a garbage chute still existed even in a highly ordered society like Esthar's.
What made Dr. Gesper even more sour was that the chute was a constant reminder of who invented it, of who invented everything in this city: the pompous, gloating, ungrateful little worm of a human being named Dr. Odine. Oh, how Gesper's blood would boil at every little reminder of that man's achievements.
His spite for Odine all began when he, Gesper, had presented his first invention to the professors of the Academy: a prototype forcefield, able to dematerialize from solid metal into thin air. But when he stuck his arm through the forcefield to demonstrate its traversability, a freak malfunction caused the field to rematerialize and dismember his hand.
Odine had witnessed the demonstration and quickly made the improvements necessary for the forcefield to safely function. The breakthrough swiftly elevated him to fame and fortune, giving him unlimited access to funds that would fuel the next decade of innovation and solidify Esthar's technological dominance in the world.
Gesper, however, had faded to obscurity. His students had mocked his disability, which served as a constant reminder of his failure. He left the Academy in disgrace following a pattern of angry and violent outbursts. For many years he wallowed in his lowly apartment, living entirely off of Esthar's basic income, dreading to emerge and see more examples of Odine's limitless brilliance.
But then, something clicked in him, a second wind giving him the desire to prove himself. He was not a freeloading nobody, he was Dr. Gesper , the greatest mind of the century! He would take his destiny by the horns and ride it to glory.
Gesper established a laboratory in a vacant warehouse next to his apartment. He scrounged through junkyards and wastelands to acquire the parts and raw materials for his inventions. Through long, luminescent nights, Gesper would work in his lab, iterating on some ideas, scrapping many others, until finally, one day, he made his triumph.
What he had built, what he considered the pinnacle of human achievement, was a tall, lanky, humanoid robot. Its torso was like the shell of a giant blue whelk. Its limbs were long and gray, two clownish legs and long, tubular arms. At the ends of the arms were oversized bronze hands, each having only three fingers. And, in a moment of good humor, Gesper had installed in the middle of its body a round, smiling face. This first prototype he affectionately named Abell.
Abell's function, Gesper thought, was a noble one. He could present it with a pile of discarded refuse, and Abell would wave its hands above its head and point at the pile. A magically-induced hole would grow and expand, engulfing the garbage, and then poof! The hole and the refuse would disappear into nothingness. Instantly removing trash, without garbage chutes, landfills or incineration? Making the world a cleaner place? What could be more noble than that?
Gesper had his breakthrough, but he needed to show it. He needed the recognition. But the only way to be recognized for such a brilliant device was to bring it before Sorceress Adel, the feared and powerful ruler of Esthar.
Begrudgingly, Gesper called none other than Odine, begging him to secure an audience with Adel for him. Odine, moved by a very slight grain of pity, offered to come by Gesper's lab and review his inventions.
Odine arrived with a dispassionate look on his face, his head sticking out of his outrageous red and white neck collar that shadowed his baggy purple clothes. What ridiculous fashion, Gesper thought, and he frowned at Odine's lack of enthusiasm. But he knew that when he pulled the cloth back from his miraculous invention, Odine's tone would change to one of amazement.
Only, that isn't exactly what happened.
"Vhat vere you THINKING??!" Odine shouted. "A quantum singularity has ze power of a thousand suns, and you have put one into a VASHING MACHINE!!!"
"FAWH!," retorted Gesper. "I am sorry that you haf not seen the greatness oph my intellect, even aphter it was my invention that brought you greatness."
Odine threw up his hands; he wouldn't be drawn into this argument again. "But vhy present this to Adel vhen you have created other marvelous things? Like ze no-gravity toilet? It has such a critical function, and it iz highly relevant to ze new space program!"
Gesper stomped on the ground. "No! I will NOT haf my name associated with that SHIT! Abell is my ONLY masterpiece!"
Odine shook his head and made to exit the lab, but he stopped and turned around at the door. "Gesper, I vill get you your audience vith ze Sorceress. But only if you promise not to bring that thing vith you."
That had been two weeks ago. And today, in less than an hour in fact, Gesper would have his moment with Adel. After that, he would have his long overdue glory as Esthar's greatest inventor.
Gesper put on his best quilted doublet, one with a blue velvet vest, pink baggy sleeves and garish gold tassels -- he had to look his best for Adel, after all. His maimed arm fit neatly into the doublet with the help of a prosthetic. He tied his black hair in a small stubble on the back of his head and grabbed a purple walking staff, wrapped with blue ribbon and capped with a golden ball. Satisfied with his wardrobe, he stepped into the alley by the garbage chute, facing the solid wall of his lab, and whistled. Three of his machines punched their way through the wall, with more than a dozen others following. The robots assembled into ranks and raised their large, cartoonish hands in salute to their creator. Gesper went and sat majestically on a waiting palanquin, and four of his creations lifted it onto their shoulders to carry him to Adel.
Gesper and his robots made quite the scene as they paraded themselves toward Adel's towering palace. Children and grown-ups alike lined the streets to watch as the robots marched by, swinging their enormous copper hands to their chests and raising their legs in perfectly synchronized goose steps. Gesper himself felt like he was riding on a cloud. Here he was, surrounded by the common folk of the city, worshipping him like the idol he was always meant to be. Finally, he was where he belonged!
The procession headed straight through the grand entrance of the palace, right into Adel's court. Courtiers lined either side of the crystal hall, gasping as they watched the spectacle enter.
Sorceress Adel sat in a diamond throne at the far end of the hall. She was a giantess, monstrously tall, clothed only in a flowing black skirt. Her muscular upper body was bare except for the spidery black tattoos covering her purple skin and the spanning metal wings protruding from her back. She wore a black iron crown over her fiery red hair, and her eyes were black with red pupils. Her face was deadpan, profoundly void of any trace of amusement.
The whole court was silent as Gesper and his robots prostrated themselves before Adel. Odine, on recognizing what Gesper would be presenting at court, was the only one to make a sound -- he groaned loudly as he slapped his palm to his forehead.
Gesper stood proudly, his eyes shining with senile bravery. "Your most gracious excellency!" he addressed Adel. "I haf brought you the greatest work any oph your humble subjects haf ever produced in your great honor." Adel said nothing, her expression unchanged.
Gesper turned toward one of his robots and raised his staff. The robot ran forward with a dirty bundle in its arms and dropped a steaming pile of refuse on the floor. The court reacted audibly, shocked that this man would dare drop trash at the feet of the great Sorceress Adel.
The robot returned to its original position and prostrated itself again as Gesper summoned another to come forward: his very first, the prototype Abell. The robot sauntered beside Gesper and stood tall, its overlarge arms dangling at the sides of its blue body, its round, happy face spinning around slowly as it awaited its next command.
"For years, our great society has suphfered one shamephul disgrace that all lesser societies also suphfer. What to do with our waste!" Gesper stared into the sea of courtiers, interpreting their stunned faces as a reflection of awe at the geniusness of his observation.
"Yes!" proclaimed Gesper with confidence. "The waste goes away, but it goes into incinerators and transmutators, turned into philthy things like energy and recycled products . Why, the very CLOTHES you are wearing may haf once been made of trash!
"But now, I, Gesper, haf your solution! Behold, the Degenerator! At my command, my creation will remove the waste from our universe!"
Gesper turned to his robot. "Abell! Degenerate!" he commanded.
But the robot didn't respond immediately. Maybe there was magical interference from the Sorceress, watching lazily nearby. Or maybe it was just the time of day. Regardless of the reason, the robot just stood there, its smiling face rotating slowly until it was looking at its master upside-down.
"Abell?..." asked Gesper, suddenly worried.
The robot stood just a moment longer. Then, suddenly, the command kicked in. It waved its hands above its head, just as it had practiced in the lab. Gesper let out a breath, relieved that the hitch had passed, and soon the robot would complete its demonstration.
The robot finished its motions and pointed...straight at Gesper.
The black hole exploded rapidly, swallowing the hapless doctor into oblivion. The courtiers only got a brief look at his shocked face before he and the hole disappeared, returning the space Gesper had occupied to empty void.
Odine pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head slowly in bitter disappointment. "Vat a moron …"
But Adel reacted differently. First she showed a thin, evil smile, humming a small laugh. Then her smile widened into a beastly grin, her hum turning into a soft, cruel chuckle. Finally, she threw her head back, her laugh now loud and terrible, booming through the hall.
She rose from her throne. "Wonderful!" she exclaimed. "This machine must be rewarded. It executed its function with commendable precision." Adel gave a vicious grin, almost a snarl. " It removed the garbage."